Today’s Landscape

For some clinicians, hormone replacement therapy in women and men is still considered the fountain of youth; for others, it has become a dangerous area fraught with considerable risk that is avoided completely. Controversies and disagreements abound regarding how to diagnose and measure hormonal dysfunction; how to address safety concerns in prescribing HRT; the form, application and dosage to use; and when and how to insert lifestyle, diet, nutraceutical and botanical treatments.

IFM’s Hormone Advanced Practice Module

One of the most controversial areas in medicine is the use of hormone replacement therapy (HRT) in men and women. The functional medicine approach is uniquely capable of responding to these questions and controversies, looking upstream to treatment approaches including dietary modifications, nutraceutical supplementation, and other lifestyle changes to optimize function before even considering HRT.

This module will clarify exactly how to approach hormonal dysregulation, with discussions on the most important evaluations to make and integrative treatment approaches to apply. We will help you analyze the controversies and provide you with tools that you can use immediately in your practice.

Understand the impact stress has human physiology so as to counsel patients appropriately on evaluation and treatment options.

Understand the physiology and pathophysiology associated with the HPATG axis, and how the hormones involved are modified by diet, nutrition and lifestyle factors so as to counsel patients appropriately on treatment options.

Evaluate and recognize the most important underlying antecedents, triggers and mediators associated with hormone dysregulation, so as to counsel patients appropriately on evaluation and treatment options.

Reframe the patient’s story in the context of the Functional Medicine Matrix Model and a patient-centered assessment, with incorporation of the concepts of antecedents, triggers, and mediators.

Elicit and recognize important history and physical exam findings associated with hormone dysfunction so as to counsel patients appropriately on evaluation and treatment options.

Recognize and evaluate the most important and reliable laboratory tests associated with hormone dysregulation and be able to interpret those tests so as to appropriately counsel patients on treatment options.

Recognize patterns of hormone dysregulation that will help guide overall evaluation and treatment of patients.